Cardinal Robert McElroy is a scholar of American political history and its nexus with Catholic theology. The California native studied at Harvard and Stanford and brings pastoral experience at the San Diego border.
St. Hildegard said her cookies of joy "calm all bitterness of the heart and mind, open your heart and impaired senses, and make your mind cheerful." In this Christmas season, we need to revive these cookies of joy.
There is no issue in American political life that is not leavened by an encounter with Catholic social teaching. The ability of Catholic thinkers to help the Democrats, however, is even more foundational.
Though there is nothing we can do to expedite it, we have the benefit of knowing that our physical darkness begins to end on Dec. 21. Every day after that we gain just a little bit more light.
Two prominent conservative journalists collaborated on the "College of Cardinals Report," which includes their 22 leading candidates for pope. The list of papabili doesn't just tilt to the right. It falls off the cliff.
Massimo Faggioli's book joins the esteemed canon of works that focus on questions about what a university should be, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.
"The Democrats need a populist economic platform that they can communicate effectively," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. They also need to "make economic populism the core of the party's identity."
The idea that a person is a citizen of the place where he or she is born is a bulwark against any attempt to discriminate unjustly, says NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.
In an address to a gathering of theologians at the Vatican on Monday, Pope Francis spoke about the importance of theology. Dan Horan shares his takeaways.
